The Royal Observatory, Greenwich: A Glance at Its History and WorkMaunder, E. Walter (Edward Walter)
History
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich: A Glance at Its History and Work
Maunder, E. Walter (Edward Walter)
Astronomy -- History; Royal Observatory, Greenwich
Turning back to the Lower Computing Room, we notice in it the stone
pier, already alluded to, which was set up by Halley, and formed
the first addition to the original Observatory of Flamsteed. The
Lower Computing Room itself and Bradley's Transit Room were due
to the Astronomer after which the latter is named. An iron spiral
staircase in the middle of the Lower Computing Room leads up to the
Upper Computing Room, and above that to the Astrographic dome, so
called because the twin telescope housed therein is devoted to the
work of the Astrographic Chart--a chart of the entire sky to be made
by eighteen co-operating observatories by means of photography. In
this way it is intended to secure a record of the places of far
more stars than could be done by the ordinary methods, and in this
project Greenwich has necessarily taken a premier place. This is
a work which, whilst it is the legitimate and natural outcome of
the original purpose of the Observatory, is yet pushed beyond what
is necessary for any mere utilitarian assistance to navigation. For
the sailor it will always be sufficient to know the places of a
mere handful of the brightest stars, and the vast majority of those
in the great photographic map will never be visible in the little
portable telescope of the sailor's sextant. But it will be freely
admitted that in the case of an enterprise of this nature, in which
the observatories of so many different nations were uniting, and
which was so precisely on the lines of its original charter, though
an extension of it, it was impossible for Greenwich to hold back on
the plea that the work was not entirely utilitarian.
Descending again to the Lower Computing Room, and passing through
it, not to the east, into Bradley's Transit Room, but through a
little lobby to the south, we come upon an inconvenient wooden
staircase winding round a great stone pillar with three rays. This
pillar is the support of Airy's altazimuth, and very nearly marks
the place where Flamsteed set up his original sextant.
Returning again to the Lower Computing Room, and passing out to the
east, just in front of the Time Superintendent's desk, we enter a
small passage running along the back of Bradley's Transit Room, and
from this passage enter the present Transit Room near its south end.
Just before reaching the Transit Room, however, we pass the Reflex
Zenith Tube, a telescope of a very special kind.
Immediately outside the Transit Room is a staircase leading on the
first floor to two rooms long used as libraries, and to the leads
above them, on which is a small dome containing the Sheepshanks
equatorial. These libraries are over the small sitting-rooms already
referred to. The fire-proof Record Rooms, two stories in height,
terminate this range of buildings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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